Fall vegetable gardening

The beautiful weather we've had recently, featuring sunny days with relatively cooler temperatures and low humidity, have given me the gardening bug once again. I've been busy in the garden, cleaning up, moving some plants and taking out some that succumbed to the summer heat or to disease, but what I really wanted to do was to plant a vegetable garden.

At the time that spring planting of vegetables was under way, I was a bit under the weather and never really got to do very much. The little that I did is mostly long gone now, except for the banana peppers, jalapeños, basil, and a few other herbs.

The sweet banana peppers are still going strong.

    

The African blue basil is at its best as we head into autumn.

Though I missed out on most of the spring gardening season, the truth is that fall is really the best time to garden here in our zone 9a. In spring, summer arrives much too soon with its oppressive heat and humidity. It soon wilts both the garden and the gardener. But in fall, more moderate temperatures prevail, and they generally linger well into December. Both plants and the gardener thrive in such conditions.

So, the question becomes what to plant? For me, it is various greens and root vegetables. Things like the turnips, rutabagas, and lettuce I planted today and the kale, mustard, beets, radishes, and carrots that I will plant. Maybe even collards, broccoli, cabbage, sugar snap peas, and onions if I get really ambitious. 

I have twelve raised beds to play with and I long to see them all filled with healthy, growing, tasty veggies. After all, if there is one thing that I have learned in my years of gardening, it is that there is nothing that tastes better than a vegetable you've grown yourself. And the best time to do that is now - with a sun-filled October blue sky above, temperatures that won't find you drenched in sweat five minutes after you go out the back door, and the accompanying music of migrating birds stopping by on their way south.